I have began this post a thousand times and a thousand times I have backed up... It is too sad... too much of this and too much of that... Where would the sweet be at the end of it all?
I think it might be all the Hollywood movies that I have digested. All the happy endings when we all know that is not real life. As I was organizing my photographs to start some sort of order in the chaos of the images that I have gathered I realized I have taken many photos of the piano. Pianos in houses I have visited, restaurants and what not. But I photograph them like some photograph wildlife and nature. I noticed all my piano images where monochromatic. I began to auto examine from which place in my subconscious this could reside. Quickly memories flooded my mind with the piano that never was...
Growing up Mrs.Doris Farnsworth a German immigrant and piano player taught me the scales and how to read music. I dreamed of playing Chopin and Bach as she would. She also inculcated the love of Germany, Volkswagen and the Nutcracker. She was my teacher regardless of how terribly taunted I was by the kids in my neighborhood. Having such an odd looking teacher with a straight razor sharpened bobbed haircut only Anna Wintour would envy, a thick German accent and dark John Lennon glasses it was a bit much for the tiny island even in the metropolitan area. I worked so hard to learn how to read music since only then my father would make the purchase of a piano.
3-3-1-3-3-1-2-5-2-5-3-3-1-3-3-1-2-5-1
That's how I broke it down so I could play my one handed piece during my first recital. Into numbers. Each finger a number. I never shy in looking for ways to make life easier and more effective. Numbers, chords, scales, multiplication tables, grocery shopping... It all has its shortcuts.
One afternoon I left my house to visit a the girl that lived five houses down. She was that one girl terribly spoiled by her parents with every toy and gadget given to her so willingly. It was easy to become distracted at her house. My house suffered from chronic anger and chaos hers did not.
That same afternoon my father came out looking for me but instead he bumped into the kid that lived across the street. The boy a smart mouthed know it all (doesn't surprise me to this day he continues to be the smart mouthed adult) told my father he had seen me kissing a boy in the corner of the street. When I got home the piano I had wanted for so long was finally sitting there and I could not believe my eyes. I thought I too had it all. Like my friend I too was spoiled.
My joy quickly became sorrow. It took what seemed like seconds for my dreams to vanish. My father filled with rage informed me he had come out looking for me and due to my indecent behavior I was not allowed to keep such a sophisticated instrument. I was not worth the time or efforts. Sluts do not play the piano. I wish there had been a kid on that corner. I wish I would have been kissed once for somebody's sake. At least I would have felt loved.
I quit studying the piano and gave up on my Liberace dreams but something about a piano each time I see one I become nostalgic and document it impulsively. Maybe it represents a dead dream or maybe it represents love whatever that would be I know is not just a piano.
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